When Ryot came on we were able to have an actual budget – that was when we wrote our new script and we settled on our final story and scope. Graham: Before 2018 it was very much something that we had to moonlight, sort of a nights and weekends endeavor. A week ago I think there were about five or six of us actively working on the project.įrom that point forth after we got some additional funding we really started making the game in earnest with the resources that we needed, and then ultimately we arrived at our partnership with Skybound who are publishing the game and that’s taken us up to this point now, so it’s been a long road. Typically four to eight people at any given moment, it’s usually pretty right there in the middle. To your question of specifically the amount of people on the team, it’s fluctuated since that period where we secured more funding – that was in 2018. We had a successful Kickstarter campaign, we thought we were off to the races, but like so many first-time teams it’s a lot harder than you think turning it into a legit team with an actual product deadline.Īnd so we struggled with that, but we were able to secure some additional funding from this company Ryot that enabled us to expand the team more to what we needed. Oliver: That went up to the Kickstarter, and that was in 2016. Will rallied a bunch of old friends and new together to make this thesis project and he ended up submitting that to IndieCade. It ended up getting in, and then when it got in we all rallied again to do a bunch more work around it, and it ended up winning the Developer’s Choice Award at IndieCade.Īs the game got more ambitious we took it to GDC where it won the Student Award. After that, there was some actual outside interest and so we decided ok, let’s make the real version of this thing, and we went to Kickstarter.īy the time that we get to the Kickstarter we’re starting to get on track to the game that you play now. Will brought me in to write the story and Ollie to do the music. There were also a lot of great collaborators at USC that were working on it, and our old friend Griffin who’s doing the art. I was at NYU at the time studying playwriting, I had a minor in game design, and Ollie was at school studying music composition. He discovered there was technology in most commercial webcams that could do eye tracking and he had this idea to do a narrative game about life flashing before your eyes using actual player blinks. Will studied game design at USC, and this began as Will’s thesis project.

And then Will, who’s sort of the third lead, was a friend of mine from middle school. We all went to different colleges. Graham: I’ve known Ollie since we were three years old, we were neighbors. How many people are working on Before Your Eyes, and how did you all connect with one another on the project? Here’s what we learned… Before Your Eyes | Interview With Oliver Lewin and Graham Parkes of GoodbyeWorld Games

Speaking with Oliver Lewin (Game Director/Composer) and Graham Parkes (Writer/Creative Director), we were given key insight into topics like the formation of GoodbyeWorld Games and the personal experiences that helped influence the game’s story.

Dig a little deeper though, and you’ll find there’s a lot more to the game than meets the eye.Īfter playing through the game twice, we found ourselves eager to learn more about the game’s inspirations and development, and so we reached out to the team at GoodbyeWorld Games.

If you’re looking for a unique, one-of-a-kind experience unlike anything you’ve played before, we highly recommend checking out Before Your Eyes from indie developer GoodbyeWorld Games.Īt its core, the game centers around blinking as a gameplay mechanic, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in a story of life, death, and memories.

Before your eyes story explained